How NOT to design a website

[Anastasius]

What was wrong with the old website ? Answer: Nothing. Why is it that numpties in so many companies feel the need to massage their febrile egos and decide 'Our website needs a refresh'. No, they don't. It's your egos that need a 'refresh'.

[doversoul1]

I am glad to know that I am not just being an old grumpy who doesn’t like anything new or changes. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old site and there are a lot wrong (i.e. a lot I don’t like about) with the new one.

Also, is there anything wrong with Presto Classical? An awful lot of CDs I have looked for recently are not listed. Or are there hidden somewhere in this new website?

[richardfinegold]

I am glad to know that I am not just being an old grumpy who doesn’t like anything new or changes. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old site and there are a lot wrong (i.e. a lot I don’t like about) with the new one.

Also, is there anything wrong with Presto Classical? An awful lot of CDs I have looked for recently are not listed. Or are there hidden somewhere in this new website?

Have you tried alternative sites? There is always the possibility that they are out of print

[Anastasius]

I am glad to know that I am not just being an old grumpy who doesn’t like anything new or changes. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old site and there are a lot wrong (i.e. a lot I don’t like about) with the new one.

Also, is there anything wrong with Presto Classical? An awful lot of CDs I have looked for recently are not listed. Or are there hidden somewhere in this new website?

The Advanced Search seems to have disappeared as well.

It was really good at narrowing down searches to a particular piece of music and a specific conductor or artist.
Now it is impossible to search for a specific performance if the composer also happens to be a conductor or soloist. It returns ALL the recordings of that piece of music, not just those where the composer is also the conductor or a performer. With the old advanced search you could enter something like
Work - Peter Grimes
Composer - Benjamin Britten
Conductor - Benjamin Britten

and it would only return the recordings that were conducted by Britten himself. The new search now returns every recording of Peter Grimes - over 120 of them!
I wanted a search facility that made it easier to narrow down the search - so I could exclude compilations or any recordings that just contained the highlights from a particular piece. This seems to be a step backwards and now I assume that you must filter by artist first and then select the work you want.

[oddoneout]

Poor website design is one of my son's bugbears, and once it became apparent that looking good(aka trendy, of the moment etc) was more important than functionality he lost interest in designing them. Making them work on all the various devices that people use these days doesn't seem to do much for the quality either - compromises have to be made.
There is also a particular kind of design much favoured by public bodies such as councils the sole purpose of which is to make it impossible for the public to access information and services. Every so often these will be 'updated' and 'improved' at considerable expense and inconvenience. The latest such manoeuvre by my local council managed in the general upheaval to lose large chunks of at least one council department's records so it wasn't just the public which couldn't find what it needed...

[Serial_Apologist]

Poor website design is one of my son's bugbears, and once it became apparent that looking good(aka trendy, of the moment etc) was more important than functionality he lost interest in designing them. Making them work on all the various devices that people use these days doesn't seem to do much for the quality either - compromises have to be made.
There is also a particular kind of design much favoured by public bodies such as councils the sole purpose of which is to make it impossible for the public to access information and services. Every so often these will be 'updated' and 'improved' at considerable expense and inconvenience. The latest such manoeuvre by my local council managed in the general upheaval to lose large chunks of at least one council department's records so it wasn't just the public which couldn't find what it needed...

In such cases the much vaunted "transparency" just means you can see right through them.

[jayne lee wilson]

The Advanced Search seems to have disappeared as well.

It was really good at narrowing down searches to a particular piece of music and a specific conductor or artist.
Now it is impossible to search for a specific performance if the composer also happens to be a conductor or soloist. It returns ALL the recordings of that piece of music, not just those where the composer is also the conductor or a performer. With the old advanced search you could enter something like
Work - Peter Grimes
Composer - Benjamin Britten
Conductor - Benjamin Britten

and it would only return the recordings that were conducted by Britten himself. The new search now returns every recording of Peter Grimes - over 120 of them!
I wanted a search facility that made it easier to narrow down the search - so I could exclude compilations or any recordings that just contained the highlights from a particular piece. This seems to be a step backwards and now I assume that you must filter by artist first and then select the work you want.

On this example, searching for "Peter Grimes Britten Decca" narrowed it down well.... it can often help to include the record label if you know it. As much differential info as possible.
My first impression when I saw the new design some time ago was "too much empty space...". Which there is - far less inviting to the eye than the earlier one. I wonder if any licensing or hosting agreements forced them to change?

[Anastasius]

......
My first impression when I saw the new design some time ago was "too much empty space...". Which there is - far less inviting to the eye than the earlier one. I wonder if any licensing or hosting agreements forced them to change?

No. I'm afraid that is the current 'vogue'...[waggle two fingers downwards on both hands]. White space. White space. White space. Too much of it. That and choosing fonts that look like they come from a kindergarden book. No, the two-year olds have definitely taken over the asylum.

[Anastasius]

On this example, searching for "Peter Grimes Britten Decca" narrowed it down well.... it can often help to include the record label if you know it. As much differential info as possible.
...

But if you DON'T know the record label then you are stuffed. With the old Advanced Search, no such problem.

[Sir Velo]

But if you DON'T know the record label then you are stuffed. With the old Advanced Search, no such problem.

Actually, you've probably hit on the one situation when I would use the advanced search, i.e. when there is a composer/conductor recording. Otherwise, it really isn't an issue, and even then will only be a minor irritation for very popular works such as Grimes or West Side Story where there are also orchestral suites to contend with. It's unlikely to be such an issue when searching for Britten conducted performances of Owen Wingrave for example! As Jayne notes, you just enter as much detail as you can in the search bar and hit enter, saves all that faffing around completing fields!

NB, Presto does offer the option of sorting the results, A-Z by title, popularity, year of release, relevance etc. You can also view the results as thumbnails which increases the number of visible results per page. In your example, typing Britten Grimes Decca and selecting thumbnail view resulted in all available recordings being visible on one page.

[Beef Oven!]

Presto have lost my purchase history and I can't re-download the things I lost when my library crashed.

More importantly, I really think the BBC need to do something about their website.

[Nick Armstrong]

I am glad to know that I am not just being an old grumpy who doesn’t like anything new or changes. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old site and there are a lot wrong (i.e. a lot I don’t like about) with the new one.

Also, is there anything wrong with Presto Classical? An awful lot of CDs I have looked for recently are not listed. Or are there hidden somewhere in this new website?

I wondered the same thing, and feel the same about the new site. One aspect of the change had an impact at Christmas - getting Presto 'vouchers' had become a pleasant aspect of present-giving, especially for me - for a few years now, they were regular and most welcome and practical gifts from friends and family. This time: 'gift vouchers not (yet) available on our new website'. I settled for 'IOUs'... Can't see that things have changed since Christmas. Have just emailed them...